Pembroke Studios, a £6.5m student accommodation scheme in Liverpool by developer YPG, has welcomed its first residents.

Situated in the Knowledge Quarter at 4-10 Pembroke Place, the six-storey building contains 94 studio apartments. YPG said that all were sold off-plan within six weeks of construction starting, with heavy interest from overseas investors.

The 40,000 sq ft development, on the site of the former Salters Building, also features cycle storage, laundry facilities, a student management office and three ground-floor commercial units across 2,700 sq ft, on one of which YPG is in discussions to introduce a bubble tea café.

Ming Yeung, managing director of YPG, said: “Liverpool’s student population is up a fifth on this time last year, with around 60,000 students choosing to study here – and this growth is showing no signs of slowing down. Liverpool is fast developing a world-class clinical academic campus, and students from around the world will continue to be drawn to it.

“Increasingly, the demand is for high-specification, secure accommodation, in the heart of the city. The days of overcrowded house shares in the suburbs are becoming a thing of the past.”

YPG has now started on site with a 10-storey, 218-bed student and key-worker development on Devon Street, New Islington, with the first residents expected to move in during early 2019.

The company has also applied for planning permission to convert a former Wirral Council building off Hamilton Square, Birkenhead, into a 200-bed student apartment block. YPG is also proposing to build a new office for Asif Hamid’s The Contact Company at Kings Dock, within a wider mixed-use development at the council-owned site.